Sew-In-Progress: How to Make a “Soma” Swimsuit—Materials and More

I cannot believe that I am sewing swimsuits and knitting wool hats at the same time 🙂 We are at the end of December and the weather is pretty chilly but it is always so sunny outside. I continue to go to the beach sometimes with my wetsuit though I have to admit I am doing it much less this year. As you might remember I did my first swimsuit a few months ago and since then I am hooked and I wanna try more.

I am now trying a new pattern: the Soma Swimsuit from Papercut patterns. I love how the pattern gives you three different options: two bikinis and one whole piece swimsuit. Eventually I would like to try all of them but I decided to begin with the bikini top second variation and low rise bottom. Both low and high rise bottoms seem to come higher and more closed than the bikinis that I bought in stores. Let’s see how that will work out.

Regarding sizing, when I looked at the measurements chart, I came out as XS for bust and hip measurements. Not believing that this could be true, I made a muslin and it turned out that it was a good fit.

Here is a list of materials and where I got them:

1. Pattern: Papercut patterns Soma Swimsuit. I ordered it from the internet because well what can I say, I love getting neatly organized, nicely packaged patterns in the mail. It is such a great feeling waiting for it to arrive. It is almost like receiving a letter. To my surprise it did reach Tel Aviv all the way from New Zealand. It did take almost six weeks though. But it was worth the wait.

2. Fabric: Well, there is no printed swimsuit fabric in Tel Aviv or at least anything that I am aware of! Only plain ones… and for the ones in Turkey, I could not find them. I guess that’s because they are sold in wholesale and never reach the small fabric shops. But I wanted to get some printed swimsuit fabric so I ordered it from a website—the fabric fairy. I asked a friend travelling to the United States to bring it to me.

3. Lining: I could find swimsuit lining in the shops. I bought one yard of white swimsuit lining from the fabric fairy but wanted to save on the black one. So I bought from a store in Tel Aviv thinner swimsuit fabric in black.

4. Swimsuit Elastic: I bought elastic- 1 cm in width.

5. Cups: The pattern itself is without cups but I like the extra support and the structure that cups give so I will somehow improvise to get them in there. I also saw some examples in the internet and in instagram so they should be helpful. The cups come in standard cup size which looks a bit big so I plan on cutting them slightly at the bottom.

6. Bra strapping: I did not buy bra strapping because I will make them myself. There is a great tutorial in the papercut patterns website and many tutorials could be found in the internet.